When TV Stevie and I first got married, we started sharing “one good thing” before we ate supper each night. As our family grew (and became verbal), the children joined us in the sharing. It is as automatic as breathing for us to say, when we sit for our evening meal, “My one good thing is…”

Good things are our blessings.

Gratitude, according to my faith, requires acknowledging the blessings which are a part of our lives.  There is no limit to what we don’t have, so it is better to inventory what we do have.  Take nothing for granted, from the opening of our eyes in the morning, to closing them at night. Each moment in between is an opportunity to count our blessings.

Thanksgiving shouldn’t be one day in November where we overeat and watch football (or slave in the kitchen cooking, then cleaning up), but a daily practice.

I am blessed.

The brain needs new challenges in order to keep learning and adapting.

Here are a few ideas, ranging from the simple to ones that require a bit more investment.

Jumpstart your brain by

• rearranging your desk drawers
• driving to work via a different route.

Challenge your mind with stimulating activities such as:

• puzzles
• brain teasers
• arts and crafts.

Use the “wrong” hand to open your bottle of water.

Instead of reaching for your calculator, do mental math.

Learn a new language.

Learn how to play a musical instrument.

Turn your shopping list into a rhyming poem.

Laugh out loud twice a day (up to five different areas of the brain get into the action when we laugh).

Be curious.

Anything that you do out of the norm engages the brain.

People have been chasing love forever. This guy, Ovid, has most of the tricks in his book, which was written 2AD.

Just ask this guy.

Which is all fine and well if seduction and sex is all you’re looking for. But I think our culture too often confuses sex with love.

My faith teaches that “love” is “giving.” In our true relationships, there is mutual giving. Giving allows us to connect, creates, and sustains love. No relationship can endure without giving of ourselves.

Yeah, sex (in a sense) is giving, but love is deeper. More abiding.

.

My Day Job has come up with an interesting way to encourage employee giving: wearing jeans to work.

• Every home game for one of the local university’s men’s basketball team, donate $2 to a specific charity, employees can wear jeans and university logo clothing to work.
• Donate at a certain level to the Thanksgiving Turkey Drive, wear jeans between this date and that one. Level 2, the window gets longer.
• Donate to the 1st responder fund on 9/11, wear jeans to work!

And so on.

Some may consider this bribery. But if it helps us to give back to our community, then I’m all for it.

Even if I do think my “work” clothes are more comfortable than jeans.

#UpbeatAuthors

This week’s #UpbeatAuthors topic is generosity.

One of the many things I love about being an #UpbeatAuthor is that when I find the topic particularly difficult or elusive, I research it and can frequently come to a new understanding and fresh insights. That’s what happened with this topic.

I learned my faith has a tradition that “it is better to give many small sums rather than one large one. The reason is that by so doing one habituates oneself to giving. The ideal of giving is that it is not sufficient to perform kindnesses; one must strive to become a person whose essence is kindness.”

I love that.